Donald Trump denies he's against legal immigration, says he wants to put a 'merit-based' system in place

Washington: US President Donald Trump has said that he wants to stop illegal immigration into the US and called for a merit-based immigration system that could benefit high-tech professionals from countries like India.

File image of Donald Trump. AP

"I want to stop illegal immigration... I want people to come into the country legally. I want people to come in on merit. I want to go to a merit-based system," Trump told The Economist.

He praised Australia and Canada for their merit-based immigration system. "I like those systems very much, they're very strong, they're very good, I like them very much. We're going to a much more merit-based system," Trump said, without giving an indication of the details of his new immigration policy to come.

"I absolutely want talented people coming in, I want people that are going to love our country coming in, I want people that are going to contribute to our country coming in," said the US President, who last month ordered a review of immigration policies, in particular the H-1B work visas, which is highly popular among Indian IT workers and companies.

"We want a provision at the right time, we want people that are coming in and will commit to not getting not receiving any form of subsidy to live in our country for at least a five-year period," Trump said in an apparent hint at the forthcoming policy.

"We also want farm workers to be able to come in. You know, we're going to have work visas for the farm workers. If you look, you know we have a lot of people coming through the border, they're great people and they work on the farms and then they go back home. We like those people a lot and we want them to continue to come in," he said in response to a question.